Waverley; Or, 'Tis Sixty Years Since

by Walter Scott

'Quite positive.'

'Then that little limb of the devil has cheated the gallows, for cut-throat was written in his face; though' (turning to Lady Emily) 'it was a very handsome face too.—But for you, Edward, I wish you would go down again to Cumberland, or rather I wish you had never stirred from thence, for there is an embargo on all the seaports, and a strict search for the adherents of the Pretender; and the tongue of that confounded woman will wag in her head like the clack of a mill, till somehow or other she will detect Captain Butler to be a feigned personage,'

'Do you know anything,' asked Waverley, 'of my fellow traveller?'

'Her husband was my sergeant-major for six years; she was a buxom widow, with a little money—he married her—was steady, and got on by being a good drill. I must send Spontoon to see what she is about; he will find her out among the old regimental connexions. To-morrow you must be indisposed, and keep your room from fatigue. Lady Emily is to be your nurse, and Spontoon and I your attendants. You bear the name of a near relation of mine, whom none of my present people ever saw, except Spontoon; so there will be no immediate danger. So pray feel your head ache and your eyes grow heavy as soon as possible, that you may be put upon the sick list; and, Emily, do you order an apartment for Frank Stanley, with all the attention which an invalid may require.'

In the morning the Colonel visited his guest.—'Now,' said he, 'I have some good news for you. Your reputation as a gentleman and officer is effectually cleared of neglect of duty, and accession to the mutiny in Gardiner's regiment. I have had a correspondence on this subject with a very zealous friend of yours, your Scottish parson, Morton; his first letter was addressed to Sir Everard; but I relieved the good Baronet of the trouble of answering it. You must know, that your freebooting acquaintance; Donald of the Cave, has at length fallen into the hands of the Philistines. He was driving off the cattle of a certain proprietor, called Killan—something or other—'

'Killancureit?'

'The same. Now, the gentleman being, it seems, a great farmer, and having a special value for his breed of cattle—being, moreover, rather of a timid disposition, had got a party of soldiers to protect his property. So Donald ran his head unawares into the lion's mouth, and was defeated and made prisoner. Being ordered for execution, his conscience was assailed on the one hand by a Catholic priest,—on the other by your friend Morton. He repulsed the Catholic chiefly on account of the doctrine of extreme unction, which this economical gentleman considered as an excessive waste of oil. So his conversion from a state of impenitence fell to Mr. Morton's share, who, I dare say, acquitted himself excellently, though, I suppose, Donald made but a queer kind of Christian after all. He confessed, however, before a magistrate—one Major Melville, who seems to have been a correct, friendly sort of person—his full intrigue with Houghton, explaining particularly how it was carried on, and fully acquitting you of the least accession to it. He also mentioned his rescuing you from the hands of the volunteer officer, and sending you, by orders of the Pret—Chevalier, I mean as a prisoner to Doune, from whence he understood you were carried prisoner to Edinburgh. These are particulars which cannot but tell in your favour. He hinted that he had been employed to deliver and protect you, and rewarded for doing so; but he would not confess by whom, alleging, that, though he would not have minded breaking any ordinary oath to satisfy the curiosity of Mr. Morton, to whose pious admonitions he owed so much, yet in the present case he had been sworn to silence upon the edge of his dirk, [33] which, it seems, constituted, in his opinion, an inviolable obligation.'

'And what has become of him?'

'Oh, he was hanged at Stirling after the rebels raised the siege, with his lieutenant, and four plaids besides; he having the advantage of a gallows more lofty than his friends.'

'Well, I have little cause either to regret or rejoice at his death; and yet he has done me both good and harm to a very considerable extent.'